


a pleasant ending

by mopeytropey (scriptmanip)



Series: a pleasant undoing [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 06:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13404945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scriptmanip/pseuds/mopeytropey
Summary: A day in the life, one year later.





	a pleasant ending

**Author's Note:**

> An epilogue for 'a pleasant undoing.'

The house is quiet. Lexa wakes with gradual shifts of her limbs, each slight movement a distinct sound within the otherwise still house—bare arms and legs against soft linens. Her eyes blink a few times against narrow shafts of light that filter through the bedroom windows and the ceiling above. The sun has hardly broken across the horizon, but the sky over the harbor takes on the colors of early morning. Clarke sleeps, and Lexa lies in the silence. Her second year away from New York and still, an adjustment to this lack of noise. The house is situated along a placid waterfront; but even the narrow road which borders the harbor has never known heavy traffic, honking horns, noisy swarms of pedestrians, or loud city vehicles. Sometimes, even now, Lexa will keep still in these moments and try to recall the sounds from her old life.

She doesn’t always miss it—she almost never does, no matter Anya’s constant needling for her to return—but when she does feel a distant tugging for the city she left, it is always for its thrum of life. The perpetual, living, breathing mass of its activity—a sound of movement, unending.

This pocket of New England is generally quiet and calm. A relatively slow-paced city that carries along on the sea breeze without much urgency. In many ways, she has easily succumbed to this incidental way of life. Here there are wide open spaces filled with meandering people. There are fishmongers, waterways, and miles of rocky coastline. Lexa turns onto her side, bunches the soft duvet beneath her chin and smiles. Here there is also Clarke, asleep on a Saturday morning in the bed they’ve now shared for over a year. Clarke, in contrast to her coastal town, is rarely quiet. Lexa finds herself tempted to wake her if only to indulge in the sounds of Clarke’s scratched voice, the gravelled morning whimpers at having been woken on a Saturday before the sun has fully risen.

She uses restraint instead, slips from their bed noiselessly, and heads for the bathroom to ready for a run. She can appreciate the differences in her life outside of New York’s persistent bustle, but Lexa is still a creature of habit.

:::

She can always forego coffee first thing in the morning, but she knows Clarke will wake in search of it—urgently pawing around the kitchen like a groggy, intrusive wild animal, inevitably spilling coffee grounds that Lexa will later scoop into the trash can. Lexa will enjoy her first cup later, after a long run and hot shower, but she ties her laces while the kettle boils so that Clarke will have coffee as soon as she wakes. When Clarke wakes first, there is always coffee left for her on the counter. Often, it is accompanied by sweetly scrawled notes on yellow post-its which are stuck to the kettle. And sometimes, because Clarke will always be Clarke, the notes are less sentimental  and more overtly suggestive.  

Lexa is fiddling with a playlist on her phone, earbuds slung around her neck, when she hears movement on the stairs and looks up to see her dishevelled girlfriend. Clarke is scowling and sleep-mussed, wearing a baggy shirt and no pants. Lexa smiles. She’s in an old Triku shirt, pillaged from Lexa’s endless collection of company attire. She often finds Clarke in her clothes that bear the logo which brought them together. On one memorable occasion, she returned home to discover Clarke in her dark grey Trikru tank top and nothing else.

“Where are you going?” Clarke practically whines. Her voice, at the very least, is pitched too high for this early morning hour.

Lexa looks down as if to examine herself—bright green running shoes, her favorite track shorts from high school, and a loose tank over her black sports bra. She looks back to Clarke with amusement. “Book club?”

Clarke hasn’t stopped moving since descending the stairs and walks straight into Lexa’s frame until her head knocks against Lexa’s collarbone. She’s tucked her arms into herself, and Lexa’s bare arms wrap around her crumpled form with a soft _oof_.

“Not allowed to mock me before coffee,” Clarke mumbles against her chest.

“I’m just going for a run. I figured I’d be back before you woke up.”

Lexa has rested her chin atop Clarke’s messy blonde head, but readjusts as Clarke looks up at her with a pitiful frown. “I told you last night I would go, and you were about to leave without me.”

Lexa’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “I thought that was a joke.”

“I would never joke about physical fitness.”

“You constantly joke about physical fitness, Clarke.”

“Shut up.” Clarke again nuzzles into the skin exposed above the low neckline of Lexa’s tank top. “I’m coming with you.”

“Um, okay.”

In under twenty minutes, Clarke has, in fact, changed out of her sleep shirt and located what Lexa suspects to be her singular running outfit—articles of clothing that she has no trouble recalling from a day in their not-so-recent past. It’s been over a year since Lexa last attempted a run with Clarke, and yet again she registers the distracting elements of the outfit she’s meant to run beside. Luckily, at this point she is allowed, if not encouraged to look.

Clarke has reentered the kitchen looking a bit more refreshed, even if Lexa knows it’s mostly for show. She’s tying back her hair into a messy ponytail and swilling the last of her coffee from a mug she then places on the island. Lexa subtly sweeps her eyes from Clarke’s bared shoulder caps down the cleavage produced by her sports bra before casually returning to her phone. She has been occupying herself on a kitchen stool, scrolling through emails while Clarke scrambles to get ready and feign excitement.

“You don’t have to do this, you know. The secret is out that you detest running.”

“No way,” Clarke protests weakly, and Lexa grins, wondering if she knows just how inauthentic her voice sounds when she tries too hard. “I totally want to do this with you. I swear.”

Lexa considers her for a long moment, watching with unguarded skepticism as she bends to tie her shoes. Clarke is exceptionally headstrong. Some might say stubborn. Some might say that Clarke can be _exorbitantly_ stubborn. Bullheaded, even—not Lexa, of course, she would never. Still, there is something curious about her persistence this morning.

“You’re being particularly resolute about this. Even for you.”  

“You’re doing my thing,” Clarke shrugs, “it’s only fair I do your thing.”

Clarke leans her elbows against the island as Lexa arches an eyebrow, letting her eyes trail suggestively over Clarke’s exposed skin. “Tell me more about you doing my thing?”

Clarke gives her the same look that always follows her infrequent forays into sexual innuendo—a fond curve to her mouth that lightens her eyes, expressing that Clarke is not purely amused but also extremely proud.

“I like where your head’s at,” she winks. “But, what I mean is we’re taking the boat down the coast later. I can handle a little jaunt around town this morning in return.”

“Taking your fancy, vintage skiff for a leisurely afternoon in Rockport Harbor hardly compares to an hour of cardio.”

Clarke stands straight and crosses her arms over her chest. “It does if you have a fear of boats.”

Lexa’s smile vanishes. Betrayal. A jolt of embarrassment. Then a brilliant flare of anger. Not for Clarke but—

“Anya.” Lexa’s low growl has the opposite of its intended effect, and Clarke chuckles shamelessly, bringing one hand up to place several soft pats against Lexa’s red cheek.  

In the spring, when things had finally begun to thaw, they had taken a long weekend to New York. Laughed with Gustus. Met up with college friends. Visited old haunts. Strolled Grand Army Plaza and laid under the weeping willows of Prospect Park drinking cans of rosé. Then there had been dinner and drinks with Anya. At a certain point, she’d sequestered Clarke by the bar under the guise of getting another round of drinks; but they had lingered, huddled together in conversation. It was all very unsavoury to Lexa at the time, and something has been looming suspiciously ever since.

“What else did she tell you?”

Clarke presses a lingering kiss to Lexa’s pouting lower lip, looking far too pleased as she pulls away. “Nothing.”

Lexa’s frown hardens, unable to properly enjoy the sway of Clarke’s hips in her grey spandex capris and a cropped top as she exits the kitchen a few steps ahead of her. She begins mentally wading through a backlog of personal information that Anya has been privy to, her face drawn in consternation as she follows Clarke out the front door and locking it behind them. Given their long history, it’s an unfortunately extensive catalogue, and Lexa quickly gives up trying to calculate all the ways in which Anya has likely betrayed her trust. Instead, she decides to spend the duration of their run plotting her scathing revenge.

“Are you planning to sulk about this for an extended period of time?”

They’ve walked a short distance from the house to a stretch of waterfront maintained as a city park—nothing more than a hedge of pink rose bushes and a few wooden benches, but it has a low, cement retaining wall that Lexa likes to stretch against.

“Of course not,” she answers, her right foot perched against the sloping wall as her hamstring pulls taut.

Clarke mirrors her positioning. “I can’t believe you’ve never told me about this phobia.”

“It isn’t a _phobia_.” Lexa raises a shoulder, nonchalant despite her sudden and vivid memories of Clarke’s first invitation to go fishing and the day it actually became a reality. She feels a preemptive sweat beginning to form. Switching legs, she watches as Clarke does the same. “Anyway, I had enough working against me at the time, didn’t I?”

“Fair enough,” Clarke concedes, deftly avoiding any further discussion of past obstacles that worked to keep them from being together sooner. Namely, Lexa’s misguided loyalty to a relationship that had run its course. “But, we’ve been out on the boat loads of times since then.”

“I know,” Lexa says. “That’s because it doesn’t really bother me anymore.”

Clarke looks very much like she doesn’t fully believe her. Lexa avoids eye contact even as they stand facing one another while she begins stretching her triceps.

“If you say so,” Clarke sighs.

:::

Clarke has either been working out in secrecy over the past 18 months or she had merely feigned an inability to keep pace with Lexa the first time for the sake of dramatics. Lexa suspects the latter. They’ve run the length of a coastal route from Clarke’s house into town, avoiding portions of the waterfront that are often cluttered with tourists in summer. Lexa winds them through residential parts of the city instead—old Victorians and boxy Colonials situated beside cramped, historic row houses whose front steps infringe on the cobbled sidewalks. She’ll eventually loop them back towards the water for the return trip home, but first they dip down onto the Rail Trail for a change of scenery and some shade. Clarke finally starts to show signs of fatigue, nearly three miles into the run by Lexa’s digital wrist tracker. They don’t speak much, sharing smiles instead and the occasional brush of their biceps and elbows as one veers too close to the other.

“Okay?” Lexa asks, and Clarke, though audibly out-of-breath, nods with a smile.

“Good,” she manages to pant after a prolonged second.

“Can you make it back to the water from here? It’s all downhill.”

“Sure, why not? I stopped being able to feel the bottoms of my feet like a mile ago.”

“Well, that’s promising,” Lexa grins, eyes freely roaming Clarke’s bouncing chest, the wisps of hair that have curled with sweat along her temple. Despite having seen her in various states of undress countless times, there’s still something enticing about seeing Clarke like this. So out of her element.  

“You’re going to trip over your own feet if you don’t stop perving,” Clarke warns.

Lexa smiles at being found out then spins on the balls of her feet to jog backwards as if to prove a point. “On the contrary. I’ve got excellent coordination for multi-tasking.” Clarke narrows her eyes as Lexa’s smile grows. The view from this angle is even better.

“I hope you fall on your ass.”

Eventually, Clarke does collapse from exhaustion. Just south of the riverwalk and, luckily, onto a bench this time instead of the worn asphalt of the running trail as she had the first time. Lexa sits at the opposite end, pulls Clarke’s legs into her lap, and starts to massage her calves while they catch their breath. The breeze coming off the water is soothing, cooler than the air by at least a few degrees. Still, Lexa anticipates chugging a very large glass of water once they get home if she can manage to coax Clarke into walking ever again. Lexa’s shirt is damp with sweat, beads of perspiration still collecting along her neck and hairline as Clarke groans pitifully beside her.

“You survived. I’m impressed.”

“Don’t,” Clarke coughs through a breath which sounds more like a wheeze, “patronize me.”

“I’m genuinely impressed, Clarke. We ran just under five miles.”

Clarke has slung an arm over her face, eyes hidden in the crook of her elbow. “I’ll never walk again.” She winces, her left leg jerking slightly as Lexa’s fingers work into a particularly tense muscle. “And I’m serious this time.”

“Are you going to ask me to carry you the last quarter mile home?”

Clarke peeks out from beneath the shadow of her arm. “Maybe. Would you say yes?”

“Maybe,” Lexa grins. “How much time do we have before we set sail?”

“There’s really no rush. It’ll take a couple of hours to navigate south, but we have plenty of daylight left to make it down the coast since _someone_ woke us at dawn.”

“No one woke you,” Lexa corrects, hands coming to rest atop Clarke’s shins.

Clarke shifts around on the bench until she’s sitting, legs still draped over Lexa’s lap and head now resting against her shoulder. They are sat too close for the heat, their too-warm skin stuck together in several places that should be quite uncomfortable. Lexa finds she doesn’t care. Clarke fiddles Lexa’s fingers with her own, admitting quietly, “You know I never sleep well unless you’re in the bed.”

Lexa smiles, exhaling a quick laugh. “There are times when I’m hyper-aware of the reasons our friends are so disgusted by us.”

Clarke laughs in turn, leans up to kiss the salty skin of Lexa’s neck. “Yeah.”

:::

After another fifteen minutes, and plenty of gentle cajoling, Lexa pulls Clarke’s still limp frame from the wooden bench.

She stumbles down the path towards the house, using Lexa’s steady arm as a crutch for her wobbly limbs. “Next time I decide to do this, remind me that I hate doing this.”

“I realize you hate the running part, but I feel like you’re really going to enjoy the post-run activities.”

Clarke turns her head with an assessing look, mouth turning up in an impish grin to match Lexa’s own. “Oh yeah?”

Lexa hums. “Far less clothes.”

Clarke tugs at her damp tank top until Lexa is crowding her into the sloped retaining wall. They laugh, stumbling into the pebbled concrete so that Lexa is forced to brace her weight against the palms of her hands on either side of Clarke’s waist. A gaggle of power-walking women in uniformed black spandex approaches from the far end of the modest park, pushing strollers, wearing dark sunglasses, and talking over one another. Lexa takes a measured step back, no longer completely draped over her girlfriend, though her eyes maintain their mischief as she keeps Clarke’s gaze. Cars along the narrow road beside them pass at regular intervals, but the salty breeze off the water and the lingering adrenaline from their run has Lexa’s thoughts wandering.

The cacophony of women rumble past, taking their jumbled conversation with them where it is instantly lost on the breeze. Lexa once again steps closer into Clarke’s space, finding her knowing grin as their legs slot together. The first kiss is light, but Clarke chases her retreating mouth and pulls Lexa back down with a hand hooked around her neck. She stumbles a half step forward, nudging Clarke farther into the half-wall at her back. They smile, kisses sloppy and excited, breaths accelerating all over again. They are hardly secluded for this type of encounter, but something about kissing her girlfriend in the middle of a quiet park on a sun-drenched Saturday has Lexa’s heart thrumming. She has kissed Clarke all over town in a hundred different public locations—she doesn’t know why she suddenly feels like a risque teenager breaking curfew on a school night.

“Let’s go home,” Clarke eventually suggests, her breaths hitting Lexa’s cheeks in short pants.

Lexa is dragging her off the retaining wall and in the direction of the house in quick seconds. They’re less than block from home, and Clarke’s limbs have miraculously recovered to the extent that she is keeping a brisk pace with Lexa down the length of coastline between the park and the house.  

:::

They litter the bedroom floor with sweaty clothing and undergarments, stripping clumsily on their way to the bathroom. They tumble into a hot shower, spending at least as much time kissing and groping as they do soaping up and rinsing off. It’s excellent foreplay, if not entirely ineffective hygiene. Afterwards, Lexa falls into bed, pulling Clarke on top of her, as their towels fall away and warm, damp skin sticks to warm skin, tinged pink from the hot shower. Clarke immediately collapses into the mattress—her limbs too fatigued and sore to do anything but lie back and let Lexa take care of her. Her leg then cramps just prior to orgasm, and Lexa’s sympathetic murmurings dissolve into laughter at Clarke’s predicament.

“Oh my god, this is not funny!” Clarke cries, nevertheless laughing along.

“I’m sorry,” Lexa says, laughing against her skin. “I’m sorry.”

Their collective laughter fades as Lexa’s hand again finds its rhythm, and they manage to come in close succession, Clarke getting there first and Lexa following after while still straddling Clarke’s hips. She nearly dozes from the exertion of their morning not long after—sated and pleasantly drowsy—if not for the rumbling in her empty stomach.    

“We should get brunch,” she says, eyes still closed, limbs sprawled and cooling in the open air.

“Are you serious right now?” Clarke lies beside her, arms and legs akimbo and staggered with Lexa’s own. “Babe, you’re supposed to talk dirty to me _before_ we have sex.”

Lexa rolls her head and opens her eyes to find that Clarke is already looking back. “Your relationship with food is somewhat questionable.”

Clarke’s laugh, always a mixture of bright notes and low rasp, is still one of the best sounds. “I especially love brunch.”

“Yes, I know.”

Clarke then looks a bit conspiratorial, as if they might be planning a heist instead of considering eggs and breakfast meat. “Where should we go?”

“Let’s go to the bar.”

“Dockside? We’re not open for at least another hour.”

“Lucky for you, I’ve got some pull with the staff,” Lexa grins.

Clarke’s mouth drops open. “What did you do?”

“I talked with Octavia and asked if the kitchen could be persuaded to provide brunch for their favorite boss outside of normal business hours.” Lexa rolls over onto her side so that she can place a hand on Clarke’s bare stomach, drawing circles on her skin.  

Clarke shakes her head knowingly, already having sussed her out. “You bartered with beer, didn’t you?”

Lexa shrugs. “Murphy is an excellent chef, but otherwise a very simple man.”

:::

Clarke finds her in the kitchen twenty minutes later where Lexa is leant against the counter, typing into her running message with Octavia. She sidles next to her, wearing a breezy sundress and gold, dangling earrings. Lexa pecks a kiss against her temple before slipping the phone into her back pocket.

“I was letting Octavia know that we’re on our way, and that I plan to collect on our recent wager when we arrive.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “What are you two betting on now?”

“I informed her last night about your plans to run with me this morning.”

Clarke looks scandalized. “Did you not think I would make it? Did you bet against me?!”

“No,” Lexa laughs, hands automatically reaching for Clarke’s waist. “Of course not. Octavia did.”  

“What a bitch,” Clarke frowns.

“Yes, she’s a horrible friend.”

Clarke’s eyes then lighten with intrigue moments later. “How much did we win?”

Lexa arches an eyebrow. “‘We?’”

“Uh, yeah. My legs, my winnings.”

Lexa gives her a calculating look, nodding her consent a moment later. “I see. I guess we’re splitting three hundred bucks then.”

“Three _hundred_? Jesus, you guys are so ridiculous.”

Lexa bites her lower lip contemplatively. “Should I not disclose the stakes of my regular bets with Raven?”

Clarke kisses her soundly before pushing off Lexa’s chest and shaking her head. “Nope. Definitely not. I do not want to know.”

:::

Lexa does not like boats. For no concrete reason and with no prior experiences reinforcing her discomfort, she does not favor them. She likes the ground—stable and solid—under her feet. She prefers hard packed soil, soft grass, even cracked asphalt. Having never lived near tenuous fault lines, Lexa’s ground has always been steadfast and predictable. It does not shift and surge like the ocean.

She trusts Clarke explicitly, both on dry land and at sea, though that doesn’t stop her heart from hammering and hands from sweating as they launch from the docks and fall under the shadow of the Memorial Bridge. She has developed a pattern of doing whatever makes Clarke happy, including participating in the things that Clarke enjoys. Fortunately for Lexa, this generally coincides with her own interests

The exception, of course, being afternoons spent seafaring along Massachusetts’ waterways.  

“How are you holding up, sailor?”

Lexa expected the teasing. Clarke’s barely concealed tone of amusement is hardly a surprise. Once she had been made privy to Lexa’s fear of boats, it was only a matter of time before she would be under fire from Clarke’s mockery. What she hadn’t anticipated, is just how swiftly it would begin.

“I’m fine,” she says, and it is mostly true.

If Lexa doesn’t think about the hundreds of other boats in the water, she’s fine. If she doesn’t think about the cavelier grip that Clarke has on the wheel and the way she keeps glancing off course to smile at her, she’s fine. If she reminds herself of the statistical probabilities of dying in a boat-related death, she’s fine. She should just stop worrying and open a beer.

“You should open a beer,” Clarke says easily, nudging the cooler with her foot as she navigates past the beaches of Plum Island.

Lexa’s laughter relaxes her shoulders and she momentarily considers the imminent danger of kissing Clarke while she’s at the helm, carefully guiding them to open waters.

Clarke eyes her strangely. “What?”

“Nothing,” Lexa says, standing cautiously to open the cooler at Clarke’s feet. “I just really love you.”

 :::

They don’t go directly to Rockport but instead Clarke navigates them to a yacht club along the way, just north of their final destination. They dock— _Clarke_ docks, Lexa simply awaits in panicked silence as the ropes are secured—and then walk down the coast for about a mile until a secluded beach comes into view. It’s beautifully hidden between dunes and tall, jutting rocks of dark granite. The waterway on which it sits is narrow, boats drifting by that you could reach out and touch if you waded far enough into the water.

They remove their shoes and sit in the warm, soft sand. Clarke has propped her dark sunglasses atop her head and gazes thoughtfully out over the water. They sit in pleasant silence, enjoying the view, for several long moments.   

“This was my dad’s favorite beach,” Clarke says.

Lexa studies her profile, eventually leaning over to place a kiss onto her shoulder. “I can see why he liked it. It’s very beautiful.”

They have plans for dinner and drinks. Lexa found an inn with good reviews and reserved them a room that faces the water. The view won’t actually matter since she plans to keep the shades drawn and Clarke in bed for as long as possible. Clarke has vowed to eat her weight in seafood and to buy Lexa ‘the biggest lobster in the harbor’ so that she can finally be taught the proper technique for disassembling the shell.

 _“It’s long overdue, babe,_ Clarke had said. _“It’s honestly an embarrassment, and_ _I can’t be seen with you anymore until you’ve learned.”_    

The sun hangs overhead, hot without feeling oppressive. A proper summer day along New England's coast that has Lexa sinking further into the soft sand as her body relaxes. Eventually Clarke asks, “Do you want to get in the water?”

“I don’t know how to swim,” Lexa deadpans.

“Jesus! No wonder you’re nervous on boats!”

“I’m kidding,” Lexa smiles, laughing fully when Clarke shoves her over into the sand.

They wade up to their knees, the rolled cuffs of Lexa’s pants getting wet anyway from the slow-moving current. Clarke kisses her soundly, hands clasped behind her neck, and they nearly topple over into the warm, shallow water if not for Lexa’s strong grip and determination not to walk back to the boat in soggy clothes. They return to the beach after the cold current has numbed their feet and stretch out their legs to dry in the afternoon sun.

After awhile Lexa asks, “Should we go eat?”

Clarke looks like she has offered her an entire galaxy at the mention of food, and Lexa smiles. When her expression settles she reaches for Lexa’s hand and says softly, “A few more minutes.”

At some point, they’ll walk among the fisheries, peruse the souvenir shops, drink too much local beer, and then they’ll go home. For now, Lexa is content to sit with the sun on her face and Clarke’s hand overlapping hers in the sand. She lays her head onto Clarke’s shoulder and Clarke kisses the top of her head without pause. It is the happiest she’s been in a very long time.

Clarke once asked her: “Are you still happy here? Away from home?”

Lexa told her that home is not a place, but a feeling. And that she has never felt more at home than with Clarke.

         

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I promise I'm done this time. I didn't want to say farewell to these two without giving Lexa another chance to tell a bit of their story. I have to say another huge thank you to everyone who has said such sweet, kind, lovely things about this fic (in general, but particularly after the last chapter). Just ... wow. I have been so moved by the outpouring of support--you have no idea. THANK YOU.


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